CANNES FILM FESTIVAL - ROMANIAN ABORTION DRAMA WINS BBC WORLD CINEMA PRIZE

ROMANIAN ABORTION DRAMA WINS BBC WORLD CINEMA PRIZE

4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days has been named as the winner of the BBC4 World Cinema award.

Cristian Mungiu's film, which won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes film festival in 2007, collected another prize at BBC4's annual ceremony on Tuesday night.

"Thank you very much for this award, it honours me greatly," said Mungiu after accepting the prize from awards host Jonathan Ross.

"[The] BBC is for me a symbol of quality, professionalism, tradition and equilibrium, therefore, I can not think of a better recommendation for those who haven't yet seen 4 Months 3 Weeks, 2 Days, to go and watch it, than a BBC award."

The gripping drama is set in Ceausescu's Romania during the 1980s and tells of two female friends' efforts to secure an illegal abortion when one of them falls pregnant.

4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days took the BBC Four prize ahead off The Orphanage, Persepolis, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and Gomorrah.

Actors John Hurt and Adrian Lester, director Asif Kapadia and London film festival director Sandra Hebron served on this year's judging panel.

Also honoured at the ceremony - which will be screened on BBC4 on Saturday January 31st - was maverick German director Werner Herzog, who receives the inaugural BBC4 World Cinema Achievement award.

"As long as being dead is not a prerequisite for receiving this award, then I accept it with joy," he said of the accolade.